


Night Strider

by SoulUntraveled



Category: How to Train Your Dragon (Movies)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-12
Updated: 2019-12-10
Packaged: 2020-03-02 07:47:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18806827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SoulUntraveled/pseuds/SoulUntraveled
Summary: 5 years is a long time to be presumed dead, but Hiccup figures he looks good for a 5 year old corpse, figuratively speaking.After traveling the world and growing up Hiccup, now experienced mercenary and weapon-smith, decided to return to the archipelago under a new name to moonlight as a dragon trapper.Too bad no one ever told him about the crazy woman riding on the back of said dragons he was trapping.Or who he was trapping these dragons for.





	1. Chapter 1

Night Strider

Prologue: Help Me

The scars that you can see are not always the worst ones. Emotional scars, the kind that stick with you for the rest of your life, can affect your life the more than even a battle-axe across the face.

That doesn’t mean getting your cheek gashed open by your childhood crush doesn’t hurt like dragon-fire but to Hiccup that cut went deeper, that sharp edge cut into his already battered and weary heart. Hiccup knew why Astrid had hit him and to be honest he probably deserved it, just not an axe to the face.

During the dragon raid just last night the clumsy and useless 14 year old heir of Berk had struck again! One of the blacksmith apprentice’s crazy dragon-slaying inventions had malfunctioned once again and a stray bola and spun awry and smashed into the Hofferson’s house causing part of the roof to collapse -straight into Astrid’s bedroom. The damage was negligible, just a few cross beams and a portion of shingles that Hiccup could repair in an afternoon but that wasn’t the point.

The fury in his father’s eyes and the hate on Astrid’s face broke something inside Hiccup. The boy in his zealous crusade to prove himself to his father despite being the runt, the mistake, suddenly found his spark smothered and crushed. He realized he had done wrong, that he made mistakes (a lot of them) but everything he did was to help his village. But… but it doesn’t matter anymore.

He finally realized he had been inadvertently hurting the people he had wanted to help and the one Viking in the whole village he had wanted to impress. The same person who had sought him out with Snotlout, the Thurston twins, and even Fishlegs that night after to teach him a lesson behind Gobber’s forge.

Hiccup hadn’t slept since the dragon raid, he stayed up through the night after getting publicly humiliated by Stoick and punched across the face by Astrid to finish repairing and sharpening the mountain of weapons and then he repaired the Hofferson’s roof with Astrid staring daggers at him from below with a calculating sneer on her lips and her axe in her lap.

By nightfall Hiccup finished repairing the damage he had caused and with a heavy heart he dragged himself back to the forge to put the final nail in the coffin to his dragon-slaying endeavors- to take his sketchings and inventions and destroy them. But just as he was about to step into the backroom to get started a pair of cold strong hands clamped onto his arms and dragged him out of the back door where he found himself face to face with a sneering Astrid and a grinning Snotlout.

The twins Ruffnut and Tuffnut held him to the ground and Fishlegs stood off to the side as lookout, his arms twitching nervously and his eyes wide in anxiety. Snotlout was behind Astrid practically giddy as the young girl screamed and berated the stunned boy, lecturing him and threatening him with her battleaxe. (Ironically it was the same axe he had made for her 10 th birthday though he doubted she knew that.)

“You do more damage during the raids then the dragons do!” She hissed, her blonde braid swishing back and forth as she stalked around him. “you’re just a mistake! Useless! Gods above I don’t know why the Chief can even bare to live in the same house as you let alone share the same name as you!”

Now this wasn’t the first time someone had said this to Hiccup’s face before. Hel, it was Snotlout’s daily mantra at that point, but Hiccup had always been in slight awe of Astrid and never said anything sarcastic or rude to her. He had a crush on her after all, and before this she had never said anything mean to him, she had just sort of ignored him or kept everything short and concise when she needed her weapon maintained down at the forge. He had hoped that she wasn’t like the rest of the village in calling him that wretched nickname, ‘Hiccup the Useless’. Hearing her now though… Hiccup felt something snap in his chest.

Even though he was being borne into the dust and his arms held down by the twins Hiccup felt his face twist into a vengeful snarl so un-Hiccup-like that both Thurstons went rigid at the unfamiliar sight and even Astrid herself flinched back in shock. Hiccup felt a malicious sort of satisfaction bubble up in the pit of his stomach.

“W-what’s wrong?” Hiccup asked, his nasally voice tight with adrenaline. “You look like you’ve just seen a flightmare.”

He knew it was stupid of him, taunting Astrid by mentioning the dragon that frozen her Uncle Finn “Fearless” Hofferson in terror in the heat of battle. Finn Hofferson had been dishonored and outcast and Astrid’s family had lost much of their honor and standing. Hiccup knew that Astrid was on a sort of crusade of her own, to be the best dragonslayer in Berk and regain her family’s lost honor and possibly get her favorite uncle a place on Berk once again.

Yet Hiccup had just thrown all that hurt right back in her face.

For a moment everyone just stared at Hiccup in shock, even Snotlout just looked at him dumbly with his thick jaw on the floor.

Then the moment was over, Astrid’s blank expression curled into a furious snarl and with a battle cry she blindly swing her axe.

Hiccup’s head whipped to the side from the blow and his throat tightened like a vice, choking his scream of pain. Blood splattered across a gawking Ruffnut and across Hiccup’s face. He tasted blood, blood coming from the inside of his cheek. The axe’s blade had cut into his mouth and just narrowing avoided furrowing out his jaw and teeth. His legs thrashed and his chest heaved in agony as more blood spilled from his face and down his throat.

When he forced his eyes open he looked up and saw Astrid standing above him her once beautiful blue eyes wide in horror at what she had just done as Hiccup’s blood dripped from her axe’s blade. Her mouth flapped open and closed soundlessly as she tried and failed to say something to make up for what she had just done. She had just struck the Heir of Berk! She had just struck him with her axe! She was going to be exiled or executed!

Astrid’s breath hitched in terror and without another word she fled, running as fast as she could with her bloodstained axe swinging wildly in her grasp as she blindly sprinted away from the horrible mistake she had just made.

Snotlout barked after her and took a swipe at her arm but missed. Then Rage clouded his own face and he turned back to his helpless and bleeding runty cousin.

“You made my girl cry Useless!” Snotlout snarled as he yanked at Hiccup’s belt and drew the Viking boy’s own dagger from its sheath. “You’re going to pay for that!”

\-----------------

Johann Goldstrom is a man used to taking risks. He is a trader after all! Where there is danger there is profit! (and any number of good stories worth telling later!)

Usually Johann and his small crew would be sailing between the southern tribes of the archipelago this time of year but while he was down at Meathead one of his tribesmen received an order of ore to the village of Berk but suffered damage from a scauldron attack while enroute and offered Johann the order instead. The potential profits were impressive, enough to last Johan and his crew for the winter once the Great Freeze takes hold of the ocean and travel becomes near impossible.

Johann knew the risk of dragons and counted his blessings when he pulled into Berk’s port that evening and found that he had just missed the dragon raid that had hit the night prior. Johann met with Gobber the Belch, Berk’s blacksmith, and completed the transaction of ores. He was curious though, where was that apprentice of his?

“Oh, Hiccup?” Gobber’s jovial lopsided grin faded. “The boy’s been havin’ a tough time of late. His latest contraption smashed a hole in his crush’s roof, right in ‘er bedroom too! Stoick grilled the lad somethin’ fierce and the girl left a right ol’ shiner on his face. He ain’t been ta bed since, too fixed on repairin’ the damage he done.”

Gobber’s somber expression struck a chord with the seasoned trader. Johann was rather fond of the unusual Viking lad. His head may be a bit high in the cloud but it just means he sees the world a bit differently than the others. Johann found that Hiccup was unknowingly a lot like his late mother. She had been a dreamer too and Johann had liked that about Valka.

After parting ways with Gobber Johann found it too late in the day to set up shop so he met back up with his crew to organize for the sale tomorrow.

It was near midnight when Johann had finished moving the last of his chosen merchandise for the sale on deck when he hurt an odd choking sob.

Anxiety trilled down the trader’s spine and the gentle seafarer’s fingers clasped around the dagger on his belt.

“W-who’s there? Come out! I-I’m armed and dangerous! I mean it!” The trader stumbled over a crate of wine and nearly cast himself overboard, barely catching himself on the railing. The sobbing stopped and Johann cursed himself for his clumsiness.

“J-Johann?” a tiny nasally voice rasped.

Johann jumped with a squeak and stared out across the docks. It was a new moon tonight so the only light was from the torches by the watchtowers and the starlit night sky. With slightly trembling legs Johann stepped onto the dock and squinted out into the black. He thought he could just make out a small shape huddled in a ball down at the end of the docks, the dark outline backlit by the night sky and the twinkling endless ocean.

“Who’s there?” Johann took nervous tentative steps towards the shape. Images of sea demons bearing him into the cold dark water flashed through his mind as he neared she shape. The hair on the back of his neck stood on end as the coppery stench of blood assailed his nose. His heart pounding Johann kneeled over the shape and reached out a hand to shake what he assumed was its shoulder.

The trader bit back a yelp as the shape uncurled and a pair of glassy green eyes peered up at him through the dark. It took the scared man a few moments to recognize the boy laying helpless before him.

“Master Hiccup?” Johann whispered in confusion. The trader felt a gritty wetness on the hand he had touched Hiccup with. He vague recognized it as blood. “What in the devil happened to you?”

With painful slowness the scrawny boy climbed to his feet and nearly collapsed off the edge of the dock behind him. Johann once again had to bite back the urge to yelp.

The boy was a mess, his shirt in tatters and even in the darkness Johann could make out rows of ugly bruises still rising across his chest, stomach, and arms. To his horror that was not the worst of the damage, in the center of his chest someone had taken a knife and carved  _ runes  _ into his flesh, the bloody word “Useless” glistened crimson against his battered pale skin. The worst injury was on the boy’s face, a gruesome gash that ran from the boy’s left ear across his cheek and ended just a few inches short of the edge of his lips. Blood was everywhere, splattered over his ruined clothes, his skin, and running in trailed down his face, throat and limbs.

It looked like someone had tried to kill him.

“Johann?” Hiccup looked up at the stunned trader as fresh tears spilled from his emerald eyes and cut tracks through the crusted blood on his face as he choked out a tiny desperate plea.

“Help me.”

\-------------------

Astrid hadn’t gotten any sleep that night. She had climbed through her window and hid her bloody axe under her bed and pretended she was asleep. She wasn’t though, not even close. Terror gripped her heart, her body caked in cold sweat and her eyes red with tears.

Today was the day. The day her life ends, she just knows it.

She wishes she could stop the sun from rising, to keep from facing the inevitable but there is no way Hiccup could hide a wound like that. It was clearly deliberate and painfully obvious. Hiccup was well-known for being clumsy but even he couldn’t pull off a stunt like that. The sun does rise though, and with a few shuddering breaths Astrid dresses, grabs her axe and prepares herself to face her punishment with honor.

She came down from the loft and found her parents at the table, her mother making breakfast and her father Foden checking his own battleaxe for nicks and gouges. Her mother Ingrid looked up as Astrid cleared the stares and smiled warmly at her eldest daughter, completely oblivious to what had happened earlier that night.

“Morning dear.” Ingrid’s smile faded. “Astrid, why do you have blood on your face?”

“Huh?” Astrid blinked in confusion and reached up with shaking hands to her cheek, finding a dried splatter of blood.  _ Hiccup’s blood.  _ She realized. Astrid felt sick.

“I-I um, I guess I cut myself last night and didn’t notice.” Astrid mumbled. Her mother quirked an eyebrow but seemed to shrug off her daughter’s odd behavior. Astrid was always honest and hardworking, the best of her generation by far and her family’s pride and joy, so why should she doubt her now?

“Okay sweetie, just be careful next time. Thor knows how often your father came home all bloody because he nicked himself something fierce and forgot about it.”

“Hey!” Foden exclaimed with a chuckle. He turned from his grinning wife to his daughter and concern clouded his face. “Astrid? Are you alright?”

Astrid flinched a little at the question and her mind ground to a halt as she struggle fruitlessly for a reply when a thunderous banging shook their front door.

“Foden! Ingrid! Git out here! Somethin’ happenin’ down by the forge!”

Astrid’s blood froze in her veins. She didn’t hear whatever her father and mother said in reply or her little sisters tumble down the stairs behind her. she barely registered the walk across the village to Gobber’s forge. A fear unlike anything she had ever felt squeezed her heart and stole the air from her lungs as she joined the crowd gathered there.

“What’s happening? What’s going on?” Foden asked a neighbor.

“I dunno.” The viking replied. “But… it seems Hiccup’s missin’.”

_ Missing?  _ Astrid reeled back from the news. How is he missing? He had been right here last when she…

“Alright listen up!” Chief Stoick’s voice boomed, wrenching Astrid from her thoughts. “Spitelout, you take the Ingermanns and the Thurstons and check the woods. Gobber, you and the Fire brigade and check the docks. The rest of you with me! Check the village and the storehouses, every nook and cranny!”

Many of the Vikings grumbled about having to look for the useless runt but those that know Hiccup (really just Gobber and Stoick) were anxious and concerned. A lot can happen to a weak little toothpick like him, even inside the village.

Astrid numbly followed Gobber and the rest of the teens to the docks as she struggle to process this turn of events. If Hiccup was missing then her life wasn’t going to end! She might actually have a chance!

The search through the docks was fruitless of course. No one really was expecting Hiccup to be hiding there. There’s not really any place to hide. Astrid saw Gobber standing in front of one of the docks scratching his head with his hook and a spike of anxiety stabbed at Astrid’s side. What if he found something?

“Gobber?” She asked nervously. “what’s wrong?”

The two limbed blacksmith just shrugged and sighed.

“Nuthin’ lass. I was just hopin’ Johann had stuck around for the day. I was hopin’ he had more a’ those silk undies from Egypt.” Gobber sighed again in despair.

“Johann was here?” Astrid asked.

“Yup. Got in last evenin’ after supper and dropped off that ore I ordered. Guess he took off early this mornin’. Pity, probably won’t see him again ‘til after the Freeze.” Gobber aimed his hook at the empty dock in front of them. “Can ya go check down there lass? Ya know, just in case?”

“Sure thing Gobber.”

Astrid left the blacksmith and walked to the end of the dock, her eyes on the sun painted horizon. Suddenly her foot slipped and she very nearly fell into the water, instead smacking onto the weathered wooden boards with a crash and a cry of surprise.

Astrid groaned and sat up her hand knocking something a short way across the dock. Her brows furrowed and she looked down and saw a knife caked in what looked like a thick layer of rust. She blinked in confusion and went to push herself to her feet when she felt something stick to her hand and clothes.

She lifted her hand in front of her face and screamed.

Somehow Stoick was the first to get to the poor girl. He saw her sprawled in a pool of semi-dried blood, her skin and clothes painted in sickening crimson. His heart stuck in his throat as he spotted the familiar bloodstained knife laying next to her. His knees hit the deck and with trembling hands Stoick lifted the knife and saw his son’s initials on the pommel and all at once everything clicked and feel into place.

A dragon got him. A dragon had stolen his son just like his wife. A dragon had killed Hiccup.

 


	2. Three Years

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Three years is a long time and a lot has happened to Hiccup since he escaped Berk. Now an adult Hiccup travels the world selling his skills and arms to the highest bidder. His life choices are not without consequences however, the deaths at his hands weighs heavy on his heart and he fears someday soon it will break him.

Night Strider

Three Years

 

Hiccup never thought he would miss dragons.

 

Back home things were simple. Dragons are mindless monsters Hel-bent on slaughter and chaos. Vikings kills dragons to stay alive. Simple, easy, _normal._

 

At the very least dragons don’t beg for their mothers as they lay dying on some gods-forsaken battleground. Dragons don’t scheme and plan and stab you in the back, they just take your head off and burn your hut to the ground.

 

Humans though, humans scream, cry, and plea as the life drains from their eyes. Humans claw and kill for the slightest advantage, the last morsel of rotted food, and the last bit of coin. Humans can be terrible creatures.

 

In the three years since he began to travel the world Hiccup learned that humans can be even worse monsters than dragons.

 

Scotland is much like the southern islands of the Archipelago. It’s cold some of the year and populated by tribes of warriors and hosts of dragons and animals Hiccup had never seen nor heard of back home. Their cultures and religions are different though. Christians, wiccans, and other odd beliefs reared their heads throughout the people he had encountered throughout his three-odd years of travel. What seems foolish to him though is that most of the wars fought here almost always involve some religious sect disagreeing with the other.

 

Just like with the war he found himself entrenched in now surrounded by the dead and the dying.

 

“Rally! Rally!” The call went up and the guidon bearer’s horn blast echoed eerily over the mist shrouded plain signaling the battle line to withdraw.

 

Hiccup flelt more than heard the horn blast, the deep crooning shook him deep in his chest. The 18 year old Viking Clawed a thick layer of muck and gore from his face, the gritty crimson sludge running down his cheek caught the edge of a thick, jagged scar running from nearly from ear to lips, adding to the young man’s ferocious expression as he stared down the faltering line of raiders in front of him.

Hiccup rammed his longsword’s pommel into a bellowing raider’s eye and swiftly gorged out a thin channel across the reeling berserker’s throat with his sword’s blade. The dying man fell mortally wounded, his hands clutching at his open neck and wide brown eyes staring into his killer’s with a gurgling plea of mercy as he fell atop a pile of his slain brethren. It was a mercy Hiccup granted with a swift stab through his heart and a sharp twist.

 

The tall lanky young man’s armored chest heaved in deep rapid gasps as fellow mercenaries broke from the bloody melee around and retreated towards the fleet anchored just offshore. He watched with an odd sense of detachment as the enemy warriors gave chase, their iron axes and swords swinging as wildly as their braided beards and hair.

 

He barely noticed as one of the pursuers broke from the horde and charged him with a vicious war cry worthy of Thor himself Their long blonde hair braided tight behind bloodstained chainmail and wolf-skin furs. Plucking his longsword from the dead man’s chest Hiccup almost lazily sidestepped the warrior and flicked his blade through the warrior’s bare arm cutting the limb to the bone and ripping a horrible bloodcurdling scream from the wounded raider.

 

Forcing the terrible sound from his ears Hiccup gripped his blade with his armored gauntlet and ripped the sword free from the sundered limb and plunged the weapon into the warrior’s midriff, the superior Damascus steel blade easily puncturing the raider’s iron chainmail.

 

It was when his sword’s blade exploded from his opponent’s back that he realized his victim is a young girl.

 

Shocked blue eyes looked down at the blade stuck fast inside her and slowly widened in horror and disbelief. A bloody war axe tumbled from her pale nerveless fingers as the dying woman grabbed at the arm holding the sword in her stomach, her other hand gripped Hiccup’s broad shoulder forcing the young Viking to look into victim’s face. Hiccup knew this would be a face that will visit his nightmares.

 

She… She couldn’t have been older than him, a girl of maybe 15 or 16, the last vestiges of youthful baby fat clinging to her quickly paling cheeks, her bloodstained blonde hair framed her blue eyes and messy bangs held back by a red kransen that reminded him of another blonde Viking girl in a half-frozen village far, far away.

 

“I don’t want to die…” The girl croaked in Norse. Her eyes wide and staring at him, through him. “I-I don’t w-w-want to…”

 

Hiccup can’t bear to listen to anymore, listening to this girl final shuddering words. Hardening his weary heart the young man firmed his tired grip on his sword and yanked the weapon free in a gurgling spray of crimson lifeblood.

 

Hiccup heard the body hit the ground with a wet squelch and at the corner of his hearing he heard her last gurgling pleas for mercy as her body jerked and fought to survive some unseen enemy, but there is no way to defeat a ragged hole in your stomach.

 

Hiccup turned from the bloodstained battleground and stumbled towards the rally off in the distance his longsword painted in the girl’s viscera, firm in is conviction to not look back.

 

He almost made it this time, but as he crested the body strewn hill his eyes seemed magnetized, hopeless to fight the pull like a falling rock to Midgard. He tried to stop his mind from straying to those thoughts of home but when the dead girl’s blonde hair and fallen axe caught the setting sun’s evening rays all Hiccup could see was Astrid laying there clutching a hole in her stomach.

  
  
  


\------------------------

A/N: Greetings!

 

This is most likely the first time you have read my work, this is my first HTTYD fanfiction after all. I did some work in another fandom completely unrelated to this one and I felt the need to branch out and give myself a break. Enough about me now, onto the reason why you are reading this in the first place, _the story._

 

I’m new to the fandom (and fanfiction in general, hence the extreme lateness) but during my reading I’ve always felt that Hiccup Leaving AU’s always revolved around Hiccup taking the dragons’ side rather than him actually just escaping the cruelty of his village. I can’t seem to just let the way everyone treated Hiccup in HTTYD 1 before he saved the from the Red Death go, they abused him for Christ sake!

In Night Strider Hiccup escaped from the village with Johann instead with no Toothless to speak of. I’ll say this though, Toothless and Hiccup will meet in the future. The draconic/human dream team will ride again, just the circumstances surrounding their bonding will be wildly different and for very different reasons.

 

I hope you enjoyed reading Night Strider so far and I look forward to seeing Y’all again soon!

 

-Untraveled


	3. Many-Tongues

Chapter 2

Many-Tongues

There were worst places to be snowed in than a tavern Hiccup admitted, though he could have done without the two dozen rowdy mercenaries also crammed in the establishment with him. the tavern is a hearty two-story stone building with a main floor and kitchen and rooms for patrons above. For now the second story was empty, laid desolate and uninhabitable by the frigid and deadly cold that seeped into the building as the winds outside howled and beat against the stone walls as if fumblvinter had come, intent on ending all life on earth.

 

_More like the Barbaric Archipelago itself is punishing me for daring to show my ugly face at its doorstep._ Hiccup huffed to himself as he tried to ignore the persistent twinge of pain from his scar on his cheek and drawing his long limbs further under his furs to conserve warmth.

 

His latest contract had taken him to the Scottish isles, the closest place to home he had allowed himself since he had left Johann’s trading company two years prior. Though the 18 year old found the sight of snow nostalgic that didn’t mean he didn’t hate it any less.

 

The family that ran the tavern was actually stuck in this place with them, a gruff father and stocky mother with a son and daughter a couple years younger than Hiccup himself and just within marriage age. The mother and daughter drew the windows and barred the doors when the boy and father dragged in the last bit of wood from the swirling white maelstrom outside to fuel the fire blazing in the hearth.

 

The other mercenaries were huddled around the hearth in furs and cloaks similar to Hiccup’s, their voices kept to a hushed whisper like they were afraid that if they were too loud it would draw the vicious snowstorm’s attention and bare down on them with merciless icy talons. This suited Hiccup just fine; he liked the quiet better.

 

He sat at the edge of the hearth’s warmth, the furthest back from the fire and furthest from prying eyes a battered and stained leather journal in his fur covered lap. Odd scrawls of dimly remembered dragons and faceless figures in Norse regalia battled to the death across the crinkled pages. Scattered around the charcoal battleground were intricate designs for machines of wood and metal, dysfunctional daydreams the young mercenary called it, a bittersweet throwback to his days spent in Gobber’s back room with similar designs of weapons of war and delusions of grandeur.

 

Even though his childhood sucked Hiccup grudgingly admitted he did miss those simpler times - just a little.

 

A gruff warbling of a familiar Greek tongue pulled Hiccup from his melancholy and though it took him a few seconds to replay and translate what the man actually said Hiccup was quick on the uptake and snapped his journal closed and eyed a bronze skinned Greek with a long pointed nose and a wolf pelt hanging from his muscular frame.

 

_“Hiksti!”_ The Greek repeated in his native tongue. The broad grin on his smooth shaven face gone crooked from his jaw being broken, either from battle or a scorned lover it was never clear. _“Come little many-tongues! Tell us a story!”_

 

As several of his fellow mercs cheered Hiccup made a show of rolling his eyes as he shot back in slightly stuttered Greek, _“Why should I Aesop? When you seem to have the rest of the men well in hand?”_

_“Come on Many-Tongues!”_ Aesop laughed. “ _Entertain us on this cold night! Yes?”_

_“I dare say you all look entertained enough huddled on each other’s laps by the fire. If I didn’t know any better I’d say there may even be a little wrist action involved!”_

Aesop blinked as if the string bean of a Viking had just smacked the sense from his head and though many of the others didn’t understand Greek Aesop’s gob smacked expression and Hiccup’s trademarked half-smirk was enough for them to get the joke, a rowdy hoot of laughter warming the room and the men’s’ somber expressions.

Aesop shook his head and laughed with the rest of the men. _“You look like such a gentle lad, it’s a shame your Many-tongues cut as sharp as your blade.”_

Hiccup ran his fingers through his long, dirty mop of auburn hair with a chuckle and a shrug. After a thought he slipped his journal away to the inside of his own fur mantle and stood up saying, _“Though I suppose it would do us good to have a story of warmer places to tide us through the night…”_

The former Viking turned to stand before the crackling heath and faced huddled inn residents asking with his lanky arms out, _“What story would you like to hear?”_ Hiccup repeated the question rapid fire in several different tongues one after the other as to accommodate the many foreigners that made up the Sea Strider Mercenary Company.

 

When no one answered right away Aesop spoke up again but with an uncharacteristically genuine curiosity in his voice. _“Many-Tongues, your name? It is Norse, yes?”_

Hiccup hesitated to answer, he had always kept his origins close to his chest but traveling and fighting beside these men for nearly a year he was bound to reveal some part of his past.

 

_“It is.”_ He finally answered cautiously.

_“So that means you are from the north seas? Yes?”_

_“That it does.”_ Hiccup did not like where this line of inquiry was going.

 

Unfortunately Aesop’s curiosity was mirrored by every man in the troupe even if they didn’t know what the Greek was saying they could clearly see the subject was an interesting one.

_“So we a close to your homeland?”_

 

Hiccup let out a sigh and looked off into the distance his eyes seeing icy seas and craggy islands years away in his memory. When he pulled himself from his stupor he noticed every man and even the family that owned the inn were leaning on the edges of their seats, hanging off of his every word.

 

Finally and carefully Hiccup spoke, his slight nasally voice taking a melodic rhyme to them, as if he were reciting from an epic as Norse tumbled from his lips for the first time in many moons.  

“Twelve days North of Hopeless, a few degrees south of Freezing To Death, and solidly in the Meridian of Misery an island stood, stabbing from the icy sea as stubborn as the people who clung to it.”

 

The words spilled from his lips faster and faster as the auburn mercenary repeated his every phrase into the many other tongues of his enthralled audience.

 

“This, This was Berk, My village. In a word, sturdy. It's been here for seven generations, but every single building is new. We've got hunting, fishing, and a charming view of the sunsets.”

 

Hiccup’s hands waved around as if drawing the scene he spoke of in the air and his audience watched and listened as the mysterious Hiksti “Many-tongues” brought his past to life. The young man shrugged off his fur cloak, the thick mantle pooled to the floor around his feet as he spoke, his journal in his hand.

 

“The only problems are the pests. Most places have mice or mosquitoes. But not us! Oh no! that would be too easy! You see in Berk, when I was a boy-”

Hiccup opened his Journal and showed the wide eyed men and women the drawings imprinted there in charcoal and ink.

 

“-We had Dragons.”

 

 

\---------------------------

A/N: Untraveled Here!

 

Hello again! Wow, it sure has been a hot minute since I last crawled from the recesses of procrastination and splurged life onto a (virtual) page. My absence is owed to my own lack of confidence in myself in recent months, real life has kicked me while I was down and the Holidays had only served to worsen my emotional wounds via salt infusion by boot-tread.

 

Sometimes though a little pain is all that is required to get my head out of my arse so here I am sitting here in the dead of night feeling miserable with myself and tapping away on my faithful laptop and pouring my thrashed and limping heart into the stories I neglected and missed wholly too much.

 

I hope you enjoyed this short chapter and pueso- dedication to the last HTTYD movie (That ending though!)

 

Night Strider however is not ending here however, though I may need to limp and crawl a bit before I get back on my writer’s feet I want to finish this journey with ya’ll.

 

See Ya’ll soon!                                          


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